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Police move in on Tasmanian forest protest

Police have launched a major operation at a forest protest camp in the Upper Florentine Valley in southern Tasmania .

The group Still threatened Still Wild says one of its members has been arrested.

Police have set up a command post in the exclusion zone where Forestry Tasmania contractors are working.

Ed Hill, from tStill Wild Still Threatened, says one protestor has already been arrested for entering the exclusion zone.

"At the moment there are 60 police that have raided the camp Florentine this morning," he said.

"There are three conservationists positioned up tree platforms 50
metres up the road, there is another two conservationists that have
chained themselves to vehicles that are cemented in the road and there
is another person in a bold act of defiance, occupying a tunnel."

Steve Whiteley, from Forestry Tasmania , says police have been called in to remove obstacles posing a danger to workers.

"Things like holes being dug in the road, spikes in the road, car
bodies cemented on to the road, blocked culverts, those sort of things
also linked to booby-trapped tree sits," he said.

"So again the group continues to have a disregard for safety and put
in place things that are intended to intimidate people and actually
prevent the recovery of sawlogs."